Smallbone of Devizes

from Country & Town Interiors 2019

by Country & Town House Magazine

With its bespoke fitted cabinetry gracing the world’s most luxurious addresses, this global purveyor of handmade furniture continues to go from strength to strength. It has been yet another thrilling and industrious year from the Wiltshire-based brand, with a raft of projects in some of the most desirable international developments and exciting new product launches for the whole house.

Building upon its British roots, Smallbone of Devizes’ rapidly evolving and diverse portfolio of immaculately executed designs has seen its stock rising as a directional, international luxury lifestyle brand. Its significant growth in the UK market is matched by an impressive rise in overseas sales.

Major international projects featuring Smallbone interiors are taking centre stage. Across the Atlantic, leading architects and developers have a keen appetite for Smallbone’s visionary and contemporary designs and for the decades of heritage and craftsmanship that have shaped the company. This, coupled with its distinct brand of Britishness, has cemented Smallbone’s name as the most desirable in the US luxury market.

Smallbone’s US success includes residences in New York’s top-flight developments, from One57 and 1010 Park Avenue to the stunning architectural landmark 220 Central Park Tower. Here, Smallbone’s covetable kitchens, elegant bedrooms, wine rooms, libraries and dressing rooms have added substantial value to these headline-hitting buildings, and contributed to the breaking of Manhattan residential real estate price records. In the Arabian Gulf, clients include the top-end developer Emaar, which has used Smallbone cabinetry in numerous rooms. The strong fusion of British hand-made products with design kudos ensures that Smallbone is the name of choice for renowned architects and designers, including the visionary Bill Sofield and Jean Nouvel, whose recently opened Abu Dhabi Louvre was met with critical acclaim.

Since its inception in 1978, Smallbone has been an innovator. It was instrumental in the kitchen’s evolution from a space solely for cooking to the inclusive entertainment hub of the home. Since celebrating its 40th birthday, Smallbone has been even busier rolling out an elegant new showroom network, which will be spear-headed by the opening of refreshed flagship spaces in London’s Knightsbridge and New York City’s Soho in 2019. This launch will be complemented by an extension of its product line to include new, bespoke whole home solutions and collaborations with some of the most exciting names in fashion and design, including menswear designer Paul Helbers.

With each piece still produced in the same Wiltshire workshop and inscribed with the name of the joiner who created it, Smallbone’s exciting future is still informed by its past. The workshop is set within the honeyed hills of Devizes where, from the Bronze Age onwards, locals carved the outlines of horses into the chalky faces of the rolling downlands. Those mythical symbols are referenced in Smallbone’s beautiful logo, which traces the outline of a horse’s head. The message is clear: this British trailblazer may be leading the charge, but it isn’t about to forget its roots.